Whether I am talking with a FSBO, expired listing, or a new listing prospect I always make this same point. There are only 3 reasons that a home does or does not sell. If these 3 things are in line your home will sell.

One of these things you control to some extent any way.

One of these things i control

One of these things we work on together.

Condition. This one is up to the seller. In todays buyers market a home has to really stand out to sell. I will always recommend any needed repairs and always recommend that the home is staged. But it is up to the seller to keep the house clean and maintained. If you just want to offer a small carpet/repair allowance be prepared to wait a long time for a good offer. There are a ton of other homes out there that are ready to move in and the sellers might just as motivated (maybe more) than you

Price. We work on this together together. We both want you to sell for as much as possible but the price needs to be realistic. In our area the final sales price averages within 2% of the list price so there really is not a lot of negotiation. If the house is overpriced buyers won't just make an offer to see what happens. They can make an offer on any house on the market. They will make their offer on the home that is the best price to start that meets their needs and tastes.

Marketing. Buyers and buyers agents need to know about your house. This one is up to me (unless you're selling by owner). When I started investing 25 years ago the only way to sell a home was either list it and the agent put it in the mls or put an ad in the paper. All buyers knew to either call an agent or look in the paper. Now it is all internet. Newspapers ads are a total waste of $$$. Agent listings go all over the internet. This is one area of internet growth that has worked against sellers. It is great for buyers because they know all the listings are on the 'net. Since I am an Epro, I use a broad base of internet outlets to promote my listings. When I list a home it literally appears on Thousands of websites.

The FSBO challenge. In the old days I could advertise in 1 place -the local paper and sell a house. I always sold by owner. This was well before I was licensed. Now the 1 place is the internet. The challenge is that the internet is not 1 place. It is many thousands of individual places ( websites ) . Some of the FSBO services charge hundreds or thousands of $$$ up front and then you are in 1 place( their website). The problem is that it is just 1 place out of many thousands of places and your exposure is still limited.

Hello Bob - Gary is right...the 4th reason that neither of you control is the location. Great post! The website/Internet advertising is the biggest drive in moving homes. Starting this next week that is going to be my introduction to FSBO's. That I will feature their home on my website for free. That will be my way of a non-confrontational meeting! I have a few other tricks up my sleeve... I will let you know how the campaign goes!

Thanks for all the comments. I agree on location being important but we don't have any control over it. I absolutely discuss it with my clients as it relates to the price and cover it there.

There are other factors as well, such as market inventory, competition form new home sales, interest rates, etc. All off these factor in to selling the home but we have no control. I will discuss them with the client as they relate to price, marketing, and condition. For example, if interest rates might be a factor we could adjust the price or maybe offer some disount points or additional closing costs.